Gold Rush Frenzy Megaways

Gold Rush Frenzy Megaways: Slot Overview

Hard hats at the ready, readers, we're plodding underground for a spot of mining with software provider Four Leaf Gaming in the online slot Gold Rush Frenzy Megaways. Casino game makers do like going underground, don't they? Is there something psychological happening here, hiding parts of the psyche they don't want the world to see in the depths of their subconscious, perhaps? Or is it just a case of joining in a slot category that has a proven long-lasting appeal? Probably the second one, so let's see what Four Leaf Gaming has been up to beneath the ground.

The initial impression wasn't one of gasping, wide-eyed wonder. A rocky space has been carved out for a track to run through, gold nuggets dot the scene, and a couple of gold-laden carts sit in the foreground. Gold Rush Frenzy Megaways has one of those blue overalled, bearded prospectors landing on its reels, joined by three other amiable characters, but the first glance didn't exactly raise the pulse rate much.

Getting started, players pick a stake of 10 c to $/€20 per spin and can decide whether to use Nitro Spins, a sort of ante bet feature or make use of either of the two bonus buys. The RTP stays the same at 95% no matter how you play, except for the Nitro Spins, where it goes up to 95.04% while the volatility is high. A 6-reel Megaways grid is where the action takes place, each reel landing 2 to 7 symbols on each spin. This creates a variable number of ways to win, maxing out when it reaches 117,649.

Having a look at the paytable reveals 9-A card rank low pays, and 4-character symbol high pays. Hitting a way made up of 6 matching royals is worth 0.8 to 1.2 times the bet, while a left-to-right win consisting of 6 matching high pays awards 2 to 50 times the bet. When wilds appear, they substitute for all symbols except free spins scatters. The cascade mechanic removes winning symbols from the reels, dropping symbols down to replace them, providing another chance to win. As long as wins keep appearing, the cascade feature will keep triggering.

Gold Rush Frenzy Megaways: Slot Features

Gold Rush Frenzy Megaways is full of Four Leaf Gaming's usual stack of extras, such as Nitro Spins, Fortune Maker, and Super Spinner. It's also got cascading wins, a Miners Trail, and free spins.

Miners Trail

The Miners Trail carts apply features at random to their corresponding reels and always start with an x1 multiplier at the beginning of each base game spin. Each consecutive cascade progresses to the next cart along the Miners Trail. If the Miners Trail is completed, the multiplier increases by +1 for each subsequent cascade. There are 3 possible Miners Trail prizes:

• Multiplier – will apply a multiplier to the current win.
• Wild – turns all symbols above it wild when activated.
• Free Spins – when activated, free spins trigger when the current spin ends.

Free Spins

The free spins scatter symbol can appear on the reels or on the Trail. Hitting 4 scatters awards free spins and activating a free spins cart awards an extra +2 free spins. Players are able to gamble for more free spins from the Bonus Booster before the feature starts or collect to enter the round. The free spins round starts with a multiplier of x1 on the Trail. Multipliers from the Miners Trail are persistent throughout the feature, so the last multiplier activated becomes the first multiplier on the next free spin. Activating a wild cart turns all symbols above it wild, and activating a free spins cart awards +2 free spins. Free spins can be bought for 750 coins or 90x the bet. Also, when free spins end, players may be able to make use of the Bonus Replay to gamble their winnings for a chance to replay the free spins feature.

Fortune Maker

The Fortune Maker consists of 16 crates, 12 contain gold and 4 are empty. Any funds not played with are automatically collected. Players pick a crate, and if it contains a winner, they climb the prize ladder. Prizes range from 1.3x at level 1 to 1,800x at level 12. Clicking 'Collect' collects the current active prize amount and returns players to the base game. Picking an empty box returns you to the base game with no prize.

Super Spinner

Coins appear on any low-paying symbol and are collected when they hit. However, the Super Spinner may be triggered instead of instantly collecting coins. Changing bet levels updates the coins collected relative to the bet. The Super Spinner can award the following prizes when triggered:  cash prizes of 80x to 5,000x, 8, 10, 12, or 14 free spins, the Fortune Maker, or 10 to 25 Nitro Spins. The Super Spinner can be bought for 500 coins or 60x the bet.

Nitro Spins

Activating Nitro Spins increases the bet by 50% or costs 4 coins per spin. Its benefits are increasing the free spins scatters to trigger the bonus more often, having higher value multipliers appear on the Miners Trail, getting more wilds and free spins carts to appear on the Miners Trail, an increased chance of more Megaways, faster coin collection, and more frequent Fortune Spinner triggers.

Gold Rush Frenzy Megaways: Slot Verdict

It might not have been the best slot ever designed, but the last Four Leaf Gaming slot we reviewed, Cyber Vault, certainly overflowed with fresh, not so often seen ideas. The studio has bounced back from that creative broth with… a mining slot. Oh, okay, mining it is. Not that this particular category of slots was in danger of underpopulation any time soon. Nevertheless, exciting things have happened underground in slots in the past, Dead Canary or Fire in the Hole 2, for example, so on went the metaphorical hard hat for a look-see at Four Leaf Gaming's contribution.

What was unearthed was an okay game. The theme use is pretty bland, the features, a little bit better. In some ways, Gold Rush Frenzy Megaways felt like an excuse for Four Leaf Gaming to just slap its standard suite of extras (Nitro Spins, Super Spinner, etc) onto a mining game. At second look, it seems that Gold Rush Frenzy Megaways is a reskin or close to one of Four Leaf Gaming's last Megaways slot, Wild Buccaneers Megaways, a pirate game rammed with features but which ultimately went down like a mild case of scurvy. Gold Rush Frenzy Megaways is about the same. There are loads of things going on, but the dull, generic cookie cutter presentation and feature repeat made Gold Rush Frenzy Megaways a tough act to fall for.